Lactic Acid

ARTICLES ABOUT LACTIC ACID BY DATE - PAGE 2

LOW DOWN ON COOL DOWN: Cooling down, or exercising at a very slow pace after you have exercised more vigorously, will not prevent muscle soreness. Cooling down helps clear lactic acid from muscles, but a buildup of lactic acid does not cause muscle soreness. Stretching after exercising also will not prevent delayed-onset muscle soreness. ULCER STUDY Despite strong evidence cited in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere that bacteria do cause ulcers, many physicians have been slow to accept such a radical change in thinking, dismissing it in favor of traditional remedies-over-the-counter antacids or prescription drugs.

Q. I have recently increased my workouts and have been suffering more muscle soreness. What causes muscle soreness? A. The soreness that you feel on the day after you exercise intensely is caused by damage to the muscle fibers. Muscle biopsies taken on the day after exercising show bleeding and disruption of the Z-band filaments, which hold the fibers together as they slide over each other during a contraction. Doctors can assess muscle fiber damage by drawing blood and checking for CPK, a muscle enzyme.

BEDDY-BYE TIME: You are feeling sleepy. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You desire nothing more than sleep. But you can't, not until the kids are in bed. Here is how much sleep children need by age: Infants under age 1, 13 1/2 to 17 hours; toddlers (1 to 3), 12 to 14 hours; preschoolers (4 to 6), 10 to 12 hours; grade schoolers (6 to 12), 9 to 10 hours. CHICKENPOX: About 3 million children are stricken with chicken pox each year. What makes the disease so infectious is that somone may be contagious for five days before a rash even appears.

Q. I`m home after my first heart attack, which was moderate. My family has presented me with all sorts of books on health, diet and exercise, and it looks like a life's work to get through them all. Before I start, I want know if changing my diet, and some of these other things, have been proven to prevent another attack. Along with my anxiety about the future is a skepticism about so-called health cures. What do you say? A. You`re right: It is a "life's work"-for your life. Trying to learn how to restructure your lifestyle after a heart attack may be overwhelming when you`re swamped by all those books.

Q. My trainer says that my muscles burn during exercise because of lactic acid. What is lactic acid, and is there any way to fight it? A. Your muscles get energy from a series of chemical reactions that process the foods you eat. As long as there is enough oxygen in your body to keep these reactions going, food is broken down completely to produce energy, water and carbon dioxide, which you blow off from your lungs. When you exercise intensely, the chemical reactions occur at such a fast rate that you eventually cannot get all the oxygen you need to convert food to carbon dioxide and water.

Following is a list of a baker's dozen of common additives you are likely to find in your packaged and processed food: - BHA and BHT are butyl compounds used to prolong shelf life of foods containing fat and oil. They are added to breakfast cereals, enriched rice and many convenience foods. There has been pressure for further testing of their effect on the liver. - Caffeine occurs naturally in some beverages and is added to some soft drinks. It is not added to any food. Caffeine, a drug, is a stimulant to the nervous system and is mildly addictive.

Q--A television commercial for a "high protein" cereal says that women who are dieting need plenty of protein so they will lose fat and not muscle. Does dieting increase protein requirements? A--No. Protein periodically is used as a selling point, and apparently the time has rolled around again. The only situation in which protein becomes an issue is in patients who are following protein-sparing fasts. Those individuals are given generous amounts of protein to prevent the breakdown of lean tissue, especially body organs.

For as far back as such records go, some 5,000 years, buttermilk, a byproduct of churning butter, has been used by man as a refreshing beverage and an ingredient in food preparation. According to the National Dairy Council, factory production of butter began in the 1860s, but until the 1920s most butter still was churned on the farm. In the 1940s creameries began drying the residual buttermilk. The technology of buttermilk production since has changed rapidly. Nutritionist Barbara Deskins writes in her book, "Everyone's Guide to Food and Nutrition": "The buttermilk available in the market today is produced from skim milk which has had a culture of lactic acid bacteria added to it. These bacteria grow and produce lactic acid which give buttermilk its distinctive sour flavor and slightly thickened texture."